WATER. REST. SHADE.

The work can't get done without them.

HEAT ILLNESS CAN BE DEADLY.

The body normally cools itself by sweating. During hot weather, especially with high humidity, sweating isn't enough. Body temperature can rise to dangerous levels if you don't drink enough water and rest in the shade. You can suffer from heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

In 2014 alone, 2,630 workers suffered from heat illness and 18 died from heat stroke and related causes on the job. Heat illnesses and deaths are preventable.

Employers must protect workers from excessive heat.

Under OSHA law, employers are responsible for providing workplaces free of known safety hazards. This includes protecting workers from extreme heat. An employer with workers exposed to high temperatures should establish a complete heat illness prevention program.

Provide workers with water, rest and shade.

Allow new or returning workers to gradually increase workloads and take more frequent breaks as they acclimatize, or build a tolerance for working in the heat.

Plan for emergencies and train workers on prevention.

Monitor workers for signs of illness.

Heat Exhaustion

Dizziness

Headache

Sweaty Skin

Weakness

Cramps

Nausea, vomiting

Fast heart beat

Heat Stroke

Red, hot, dry skin

High temperature

Confusion

Convulsions

Fainting

To prevent heat related illness and fatalities:

Drink water every 15 minutes, even if you are not thirsty.

Rest in the shade to cool down.

Wear a hat and light-colored clothing.

Learn the signs of heat illness and what to do in an emergency.

Keep an eye on fellow workers.

"Easy does it" on your first days of work in the heat. You need to get used to it.

Working in full sunlight can increase heat index values by 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep this in mind and plan additional precautions for working in these conditions.

Who is affected?

Any worker exposed to hot and humid conditions is at risk of heat illness, especially those doing heavy work tasks or using bulky protective clothing and equipment. Some workers might be at greater risk than others if they have not built up a tolerance to hot conditions, including new workers, temporary workers, or those returning to work after a week or more off. All workers are at risk during a heat wave.

Transcript of OSHA's Heat Advisory Call from June 27, 2016

NWX-DOL OSEC

Moderator: Amanda KraftJune 27, 20163:42 am CT

Coordinator:

Good morning and thank you all for holding. Your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the question and answer portion of today's conference. I would like to remind all parties the call is now being recorded if you have any objections to please disconnect at this time. And I would now like to turn the call over to Dr. Michaels. Thank you, you may begin.

Dr. David Michaels:

Good morning. Thank you for joining the call. After the past week's record temperatures it's timely that we're here to talk about heat and worker safety. Heat can kill. And it is especially tragic when someone dies of heat exposure because they're simply doing their job. We see cases like this every year and every one of them is preventable.

We're here today to highlight the efforts of responsible employers to keep their workers safe on the job including from heat illness. We're grateful and encouraged by their actions. Sadly although every heat death can be prevented dozens of workers die from exposure every year. Last summer these included a tree care worker in Virginia, a landscaper in Kentucky, a temporary worker on his first day collecting garbage in Texas.

Fatalities are the most extreme outcome of heat exposure and they most often occur to workers who have been on the job a few days or less. Many more workers become dangerously ill from heat. Last summer OSHA received reports of more than 200 workers hospitalized with heat illness. And we know that is in undercount of the actual number.

We also know that in this current heat wave workers are concerned about their safety. In fact we've received a record number of emails, comments and questions regarding heat and worker rights in recent weeks. I'd like to read a few just to give you a sense of the reality some workers face on a daily basis. Here's one. We work out in the heat. We asked our manager about getting water that we don't have access to. They said it's just too much money to deal with it or my husband works for a disposable company for medical waste. He works inside a building where the temperature has reached well over 100 in the past few days with no allowances made for the laborers inside.

Look and already this year we're investigating several workers fatalities that appear to be heat related. So we feel it's urgent to get the message out that workers must be protected from the effects of heat. OSHA has resources on its Web page osha.gov\heat including tips on prevention and ways to spot science of heat related illnesses.

Our regional offices have also been actively conducting outreach and education on the dangers of heat. This week in our Atlanta region which covers eight southern states our staff is joining with employers and trade associations for a one hour safety stand down at construction sites and other workplaces across the South. We've also updated our free heat app for iPhone and Android devices designed to let workers and supervisors know when conditions have entered the danger zone. The program uses data from the National Weather Service to calculate the heat index at the workers location and advises when the risk level is high. The app is available in English and Spanish and also describes way to prevent heat illness and identify symptoms. The app is very popular. It has been downloaded more than 250,000 times.

While none of these efforts would amount to much, the resources weren't used to protect workers from heat illness and that's why we're so encouraged when we see evidence of this happening. Today I am very pleased to highlight a few employers who are taking to heart their responsibilities to protect workers in the heat. They're providing cooling vests, shade canopies, hydrating popsicles and crucially more frequent breaks during heat spells. We will hear from them shortly but first I want to introduce you to a group that took OSHA's message of water, rest, shade and ran with it sending it out to an industry that touches just about every home in America. This is the National Waste and Recycling Association.

It was about a month ago that we first learned about the Association's social media campaign to protect waste collecting workers from heat. It struck a chord in part because as I mentioned earlier we had investigated the heat fatality of a waste collection worker in Texas just last summer. I'm thrilled to say that the Association's campaign resulted in safety stand downs across the country involving an estimated 70% of the collection industry. Anyone who has watched a garbage collection crew in action knows that this is physically demanding work all the more so in the heat. So it's my pleasure to introduce Anthony Hargis, National Safety Director for the National Waste & Recycling Association. Anthony I'll turn it over to you.

Anthony Hargis:

Thank you. And thank you for having me on this call. You know, all the statistics and all the information you just gave are exactly the reason why the National Waste & Recycling Association decided to take on the Water. Rest. Shade. Program that OSHA has currently available in their Web site. What we did was we really replicated what OSHA already has to communicate that message to the industry.

The statistics out there as you mentioned are just astronomical. And we looked at all of our workers in this industry as work athletes because truth of the matter is the rate at which they work is something that a professional athlete would have difficulty equaling in a day's period. You look at your typical athlete and, you know, they're - they have quarters in their football games, and half time breaks, and, you know, at the end of the day, you know, at the end of the day the whole game might have lasted two hours in length where, you know, a worker in the waste and recycling industry you're looking at, you know, say a ten hour day with a, you know, an hour break in the day with a couple of, you know, lunch breaks or water rest breaks in between.

But they're working at peak performance all day long outside in the environments that as OSHA has said in their general duty clause that an employer must provide a work environment free of recognized hazards. The issue - the difficulty in our industry is that we don't own the environment that they work in it's the customers that we pick up and collect waste and recycle from. We don't own the environment. So we have to work processes and procedures to put in place to manage the work hours that the workers that are currently addressing on a daily basis. And that's really why the materials that OSHA has produced in their Web site just fit perfectly for our environment. It requires employers to really look at that climatization where for instance you get a brand new worker where the incidence the Dr. Michaels spoke of just a minute ago were statistically around employees who had only worked in the industry for one day, three days and one of them have been there for a year.

In those cases they're coming in as an athlete. And you can't expect an athlete to jump right into a professional situation physically and be able to compete 100% on day one. So that's where the climatization comes into play. And we had material available in our Web site that the - around 70% of our industry had participated in and we're able to utilize these checklists to really manage all of these processes.

You know, the processes, you know, pretty much fell into eight primary categories. One is the heat climatization, you know, requiring the employees to, you know, drink a cup of water every 15 to 20 minutes during the day and providing them with, you know, shade. In most cases on a collections route the driver and the helpers have, you know, hopefully air conditioning in the truck. And the shade is kind of hard to come by when you're picking up residential garbage.

The, you know, providing work employees with protective equipment. You know, that becomes difficult because the employees need to wear a safety vest. So what the companies have done is they've provided lighter weight material or clothing for the workers to wear during the day to keep them, you know, visible to the public, you know, with reflective safety clothing, you know, high vis shirts as well as keeping them safe in their work environments.

The conditions that our employees work in, in most cases, you know, you think of collections and there's, you know, that opportunity for breaks during the day. Once they get on a route - and give you an example. In my subdivision - there's 268 houses in my subdivision. They - the developers developed the - those houses so that there's very little to no space between the - each driveway. The driveways are not straight across from each other so it's not a set spot. So the waste and recycling collectors in my neighborhood pretty much are walking my entire neighborhood. I live in outside of Atlanta. In my neighborhood alone you're looking at - I drove through the neighborhood there's four almost 4-1/2 miles of roads once you get into the subdivision and these workers don't get any break in that environment.

So what employers are doing is they're scheduling time stop for and that's really what the materials that OSHA has on the Web site has come to address is opportunities. Ways that the employers can manage that timing during the day to make sure that the employees are getting that proper amount of rest, you know, the shade and the - and air-conditioned vehicles is really something that we struggle with in this industry.

So that's where all those other aspects have to come into play which is requiring too drink water. Providing that to those employees by potentially having, you know, coolers on the front of the trucks, providing the Web app because that was probably one of the best tools that I have seen for our industry for specially for corporations and companies that are managing worksites in multiple locations from across the country is you can literally go into the Heat Index Web site Heat Index tool that OSHA has and type in the name of the city you're looking for or that you're managing to and it'll give you what that heat index is.

To give you an example I typed in Phoenix, Arizona and that's where one of our members is going to be talking in a minute about from - that's where he's from. And it tells you that today they're having a moderate risk day. And later today at their peak the peak of the day's heat they're going to be at high risk. And it'll give you all the tools you need to follow the steps you need to follow in that environment to manage your workers even from afar, you know, whether it's managing the water and shade, the emergency planning and response.

Part of the responsibility that management has and the work crew has is being able to identify where they're at during the day. So they know they're on a route but exactly where. So if an emergency occurs they're able to call into emergency services call 911 to have medical treatment provided to them immediately, management and leadership in most companies in our industry and the material that we produce for this stand down provided those employers with that type of guidance.

The - this really all of these processes really go far beyond the typical compliance that most people think of when they think of OSHA. Most people think of OSHA and they kind of get all worried, oh, like big brother is watching, and, oh, they're all about compliance and they're going to make us comply to these regulations. The fact of the matter is the culture of safety in the waste and recycling industry is very strong. And that culture is a culture of caring where the employer's care about their employees and they're providing them with these types of - this type of material the water rush aid material.

And that's why us - that we've - at the National Waste & Recycling Association decided to really partner with OSHA's material because the material is already been vetted through the medical industry so it didn't require me as a National Safety Director to produce brand new medical information out to the industry that could potentially be questioned. In this case, you know, OSHA has provided that they've had it all vetted through their processes and legal systems. And they have robust enough systems in place that there's follow-up information that's available. If you go into OSHA's Web site you can keep clicking on more and more information to really build out a really strong safety program in any organization outside of the typical compliance that people think of when it comes to OSHA.

Interestingly enough the statistics that you see in OSHA's Web site whether it's the Department of Labor's or Bureau of Labor Statistics in most cases don't really well represent the total number of issues that are heat illness related because in most cases companies are only able to bucket their information into one category like if it's a muscle strain or a sprain or whatever that might be they might miss the fact that these are heat illness related which is another reason why employers and employers in our industry have put together programs and materials that help their employees.

A good example of that is -- and he's on our call right now and I'm going to turn this presentation over to him -- is Jim Olson from Republic Waste. In the conversations that I had with Jim when I first came on with National Waste & R Association back in the beginning of March was that we need to put a stand down in place that represents the Water. Rest. Shade. Program heat illness prevention. So a lot of the ideations for our stand down came from Jim Olson. And at this point I'd like to turn over the presentation to Jim.

Jim Olson:

Hey thanks Tony. Yes appreciate being on the call today and thanks for the credit Tony but that's not really exactly correct. Within Republic Services we definitely take safety as a priority however as Tony mentioned before our whole industry takes safety as a priority. And specifically I'm privileged to be the Co-chair of the Safety Committee along with a gentleman named Shawn Mandel from Waste Connections. And we have participation from Waste Management and a lot of smaller local companies and regional companies like Waste Pro and (Rumpky). And all of us really kind of get together on a regular basis as a part of the safety committee to discuss what we can do in our industry to really improve safety around our front line employees.

At Republic we take those relationships, you know, I guess take advantage of that and really learn from what we can do better from both our own incidents in our past within a company but then from the whole industry's perspective. So we've had the opportunity to redesign what our approach is and what our program is to make sure that our workers are safe on a day in and day out basis during the summer months.

So at Republic in particular we have a program that we call 101 Days of Summer. And although it's kind of a specific time period depending on what part of the country you're in that time period is either longer or shorter than 101 days but it really gets an emphasis point outside of just a kickoff. We always kick off our program in the month of May. In most parts of the country that's when you start to see heat change. I think everybody knows that it isn't just the high temperature days it's the fluctuation in temperature that tends to cause issues for some of our people. So on one day when it might be in the 70s and then the next day the temperature increases 20 degrees that's problematic for our workers and we need to be prepared for that.

So our 101 Days of Summer program really consists of a few different aspects that aren't just the worker safety in terms of strains and sprains from lifting and the hydration that's needed in order to prevent those but also in the summertime our industry deals with larger trash volumes, kids being out of school, so kids being present in residential neighborhoods where during the wintertime they're usually in school. And then also there's an increase in vacation traffic. So hydration is important not only to prevent strain and sprain injuries but also for our people to stay focused and pay attention while they're driving because we do have a lot of vehicular accidents in our industry too given that we have a lot of trucks on the street. At Republic alone we have, you know, some 15,000 garbage trucks that are out there every single day. And we want our people to be focused to prevent not just injuries to themselves but vehicle accidents.

So our program is pretty all encompassing. And it really focuses around hydration. And the Water. Rest. Shade. program from OSHA that then we've taken I guess to a different level within our specific industry as a part of the stand down as Tony mentioned really focuses on a few different things.

Route observations, which is getting out to have one on one conversations with our front line employees and make sure that they're doing okay. Obviously training for our people so they can recognize when their bodies are starting to be dehydrated and they call for help when they need that but more importantly making sure that they're prepared each and every day before they go out to work. Hydration really starts the day before you're actually working. And we try to make sure that our people understand that eating properly and proper sleep over the course of the weekend let's say since it's a Monday today is really important for workers to go out today. So if they take care of themselves during their off time that's going to pay dividends during their actual work time. As Tony mentioned earlier we consider them industrial athletes and we want to stay in good condition at all times.

So another thing that we have is we have division specific approaches. As an organization we provide a template for divisions to use within our company. And we really expect them to follow-up on all the different items that are a part of their particular plan. As Tony mentioned, t-shirts are one of the more popular approaches that our divisions take to key people cool. Sunscreen is something that I didn't hear mentioned but in addition to anything associated with hydration we are worried about people's exposure to the sun. So sometimes that's long sleeved T-shirts and sometimes that's sunscreen but we provide that for our people as a part of our template.

Tony mentioned before water jugs and coolers that are strapped to the side or the front of the truck, that's critical obviously. And then any kind of safety orientation and on boarding for contingent workers is something that we take very seriously within the industry also. We have to make sure that they are prepared and ready when they come to work. And at Republic we work with our provider and provide them with materials to give to the contingent worker before they show up at our location. The expectation is that they'll show a video regarding heat related illnesses and what to do to prepare. So we have a partnership within our industry with the labor service providers too.

But our whole program is really intended to keep our workers safe. Obviously keep the general public safe if somebody is dehydrated while they're operating a big heavy piece of equipment that's not safe for the community either. So our program is obviously more inclusive than just hydration for strain and sprain related injuries but it's the whole comprehensive side of our industry and what we do. Again it's been a pleasure to be on this call this morning and I believe I'm turning it back over to Dr. Michaels at this point.

Dr. David Michaels:

That's right, thank you Jim and Anthony. Thank you so much for all that you're doing to keep workers safe. Now we're going to hear very briefly from a few other employers that are making heat safety a priority at their workplaces. All three are members of OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program or VPP which encourages collaboration between managers and workers to create comprehensive safety and health management systems. So first we'll hear from Steve Washburn who is the Safety Coordinator for Nucor Steel in Marion, Ohio. Steve?

Steve Washburn:

Yes thank you Dr. Michael's. Yes I appreciate everything or being involved with this call and everything that's been talked about here so far. Obviously in the steel industry we are - we melt scrap to make products. So we involve - are involved with heat basically year around but obviously in the summer months it gets worse. So we do have 100 Critical Days of Summer Awareness Program that we implement in May and June. And really focusses not only at work but for our families at home talk about, you know, the activities they do outside, and staying hydrated when they're working out, boating and doing outdoor activity. So we just heighten the awareness during the summer months when with their families.

One of those things is a pocket guide that we hand out to all our teammates and our contractors that are on site. This talks about recognizing heat stress disorders and things to watch out for. So had some comments back from the team that it was very helpful especially away from work identifying, you know, during activities.

Beyond that year around we provide bottled water and cooling water at no charge obviously to the team and then also to our visitors and contractors on site. And then also the typical Sqwincher products, and having breaks available, air-conditioning and cooling fans. Also during the summer months we have bowls of fruit that we provide as a team that are in the break areas and cafeterias so just a little added for the summer months to help them stay hydrated.

And one other thing that we've done is we - our vending machines in our cafeterias we offer bottled water and Powerade products and - at a cost of $.50 per bottle. And basically our company is supplementing the balance of the costs. And that is available to our teammates, our truck drivers that come to our site, visitors they all have that available to them.

And one important thing is several years ago we removed the power drinks the high caffeine drinks from our machines. So they are not available to anyone on site. Not to say that they don't bring them in but we encourage them not to drink those especially coming into work or at work so just a lot just awareness. We do a couple times a year we do an awareness video and review it with the team just to keep them on top of heat stress disorders.

Dr. David Michaels:

Hey, thanks so much Steve. Now we hear from (Mary McGreal), who is a Safety Coordinator for Potlatch Land and Lumber in St. Maries, Idaho.

(Mary McGreal):

Thank you. And thank you for inviting me on the call. I would like to say that we have plywood and a lumber mill. And we have probably we have about 350 employees. So in our plywood mill we actually have veneer dryers which add heat to the area and two hot presses. So on a typical day if it's 90 in the summertime you're going to add 5 degrees to 10 degrees inside the mill. And so we - it's very important that we educate our employees so that way they can be prepared for that type of heat.

So when we bring in new employees the very first part of our new hire orientation is to talk all about heat and heat related incidences that you could have. So, you know, we hand out water right in orientation because we really feel that it's important that like you said the hydration becomes, you know, within the day before not the day after. And we want to get them hydrated so we have them start drinking water on day one.

So some of those things that we do here is definitely starting in May we hit a lot of training to educate employees for annual training on heat related conditions. Then we kick off the summer which we've done this the last two summers now we have a safety vendor fair. The safety vendor fair is not only for, you know, heat related but it's a lot of different products. But part of it is the heat related items that we already are purchasing such as Sqwincher popsicles. We keep them stocked all summer long for our employees. We have this year started to buy the Sqwincher concentrate so we put them by the water cooler so employees can use them as needed.

We hand out Chill-its towels. They're the towels that you soak in some water. And some employees can wrap around their neck or wherever they get hot. We have cooling bandannas. We have vented hardhats out for our scalers that work on concrete or paved landings. We've tried the Ergodyne cooling ducts. They are the kind that don't get too wet. They're evaporating you put the water in them to activate them and they will keep you cool up to 59 degrees. We have them available unfortunately a lot of employees do not take advantage of them because they don't want the added weight while they're working.

And then basically, you know, we have misters in the mill. So we do have some areas that we actually have water just a very fine mist that helps keep the employees cool while they're working. And then posters, we put posters out in the break rooms so that way, you know, they can see the actual temperatures remind you tell hydrate. And then of course like probably everybody else we use the OSHA campaign Water. Rest. Shade. Program and hit hard on tailgate information several times during the month to educate employees.

Dr. David Michaels:

Hey, thank you so much (Mary). And finally John Brown, Manager of Safety and Training for the Ferguson Construction Company in Sidney, Ohio is going to join us for a moment.

John Brown:

Yes thanks for letting me participate this morning. I guess I'd kind of parrot what some of the previous speakers have said. But we're a design build general contractor. So what we do is we set a lot of pre-engineered metal buildings and also conventional steel. And then we have a lot of subcontractors that do, you know, HVAC electrical. But as far as our workers are concerned we do an education piece. And we do that with the project supervisors in terms of a group meeting and then we have toolbox talks with the regular workers to try to educate them. And since we work year around weather is always a concern but of course we're hitting on the heat stress right now.

And some of the tasks that they do are worse than others. One area is more high risk generally and that's when we put workers on the roof and because you get reflective heat off the pre-engineered metal building panels. One of the things we're doing this year that's maybe a little bit of an improvement is we're adding shade shelters. We're actually going to on some of our large roofs we're actually going to put them up on the roof with them because you're, you know, up on an area that's about 400,000 square feet. So we're going to add those. And then we've got a mister machine like the previous caller just mentioned. We're putting that up there with the workers and things like that.

We do use the Miracle bandannas. Those are very cost effective. We give out the Sqwincher products. We mix that into large coolers and then we also have, you know, regular water if they don't prefer the Sqwincher. So, you know, those are some of the things we're doing. And so far for us thankfully we haven't had although it can happen, you know, in any time of year but we keep an eye on the heat index. And it has a bit as bad as what we were thinking so far but we really try to keep an eye on that.

And I give a machine to our crane operators that actually measures the heat index. It's a little weather station and they can also get that on the app like people were talking about. So, you know, hopefully those are some things to pass on and that other people in the construction industry can use.

Dr. David Michaels:

Well great. So thank you all for putting worker safety first. You know, we'd like to hear from more employers and workers about what they are doing to stay cool in the heat so send us your photos and stories on Twitter to hashtag Water. Rest. Shade. And now I'd like to open this up to questions.

Coordinator:

Thank you. And at this time if you would like to ask a question please press Star 1, please unmute your phone and record your name clearly when prompted. Once again if you'd like to ask a question please press Star 1. And one moment please for the first question. Once again if you'd like to ask a question please press Star 1. Our first question today is from (Elizabeth Grossman).

(Elizabeth Grossman):

Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call. And I apologize I missed the first minute or two of the call because of a technical glitch. But I had a question for both Dr. Michaels and anybody else on the call. What industries or what types of work are you most concerned about in terms of people being exposed to extreme heat? Is there one you can single out or is it an issue for anybody who is working outdoors in the summer?

Dr. David Michaels:

Thank you so much for your question. It really is an issue for anyone working outside especially who are exerting themselves. And so, you know, the waste and recycling industry obviously is one but not - we're very pleased that they've stepped up and run this program but we certainly seen fatalities in construction, in agriculture, and in any sort of outdoor work and of course indoor work in the steel industry in other industries where the heat is an additional problem as well.

So it's much more associated with both the climate and when we have a heat wave we're worried. But also climatization when workers just start working in heat either because they're new on the job or there's a heat wave and it wasn't hot they're at particular risk. And any sort of outdoor work, you know, we've seen postal workers die from heat in hot weather. And so we are - we want this message to get out as widely as possible.

(Elizabeth Grossman):

Thanks.

Coordinator:

And once again if you would like to ask a question please press Star 1. And one moment please for the next question. The next question is from John Martinez.

John Martinez:

Yes. This is John Martinez, with the National Hispanic Contractors Association. Are we doing any type of training or promotion on how other -- and this is in construction - construction workers can kind of tell when other people are going into heat stress because I know finding them out as soon as they start suffering and preventing is the key but sometimes people start getting sick is there any training I haven't seen it but is there any training that could help that we could promote to our workers?

Anthony Hargis:

Actually this is Anthony Hargis from the National Waste & Recycling Association. And I'll say that the material that's available in OSHA's Web site there's a heat index and how to understand and how to interpret the heat index in your organization. And usually it really it's looking at those factors that factor into, you know, those symptoms and signs that you yourself are suffering from a heat illness or the worker that's working alongside you is suffering from heat illness. And really what are those steps that you need to do to follow-up on to respond to that condition.

Dr. David Michaels:

Thank you. I want to add to that, that's right. We have materials on our Web site but also our smartphone app in English...

Anthony Hargis:

Yes.

Dr. David Michaels:

...and in Spanish has all that information. And so you can set up the training program if everyone downloads the app you can go through it and say these are the signs and symptoms. This is what to look for at various points.

The other thing the app does it does two things. You could as you heard from Anthony, you know, you can look up any city and see where it is but also - and see what the heat is but also it hooks directly into the National Weather Service using GPS. So if you're in whatever location you're in if you just hit My Location it will tell you the heat and humidity of your location and therefore what at the very moment or within an hour and it will give you precautions to take to make sure no one gets sick.

John Martinez:

Great, thank you.

Coordinator:

And as a reminder to ask a question please press Star 1. And one moment please for the next question. As a reminder to ask a question please press Star 1. The next question is from Harvey Jessup.

Harvey Jessup:

Hey, this is Harvey Jessup from the South Carolina OSHA Consultation. And I just wanted to add to what Dr. Michaels said about, you know, information is that every state has a consultation group in it whether it be run by a state government, you know, organization, or a university organization. And they're good contacts too for, you know, information on heat stress. A lot of them have trainers that can, you know, come to a site and give, you know, a 30 minute or an hour presentation on it and, you know, covering all the information that you'd need. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you.

Coordinator:

And once again to ask a question please press Star 1. One moment please. Once again to ask a question please press Star 1.

Dr. David Michaels:

It sounds like there are no more questions. I want to thank everybody who was involved in the call and to thank everyone who is on the call to help us get this important information out.

Coordinator:

I do have one further question if you'd still like to take it.

Dr. David Michaels:

Certainly.

Coordinator:

Our next question is from (Sally Paris). (Sally) your line is open please check your mute feature.

(Sally Paris):

I came in late on the call. And I wanted to know the name of the app please?

Dr. David Michaels:

It's the OSHA Heat Safety app I believe. And it's either on the Android it's both Android and iPhone or iOS. So if you click OSHA Heat into a search function it'll - you'll come right up to it.

(Sally Paris):

Thank you very much.

Dr. David Michaels:

You're very welcome. Operator anyone else?

Coordinator:

I do. Our next question is from (Stephanie DeWitt).

(Stephanie DeWitt):

Hi there. I'm just curious if anybody has tried any of the I know there's a company called IonX that makes these little patches called a Body Temperature Alert Patch. Just curious if anybody has tried those. I guess you put them on your skin at certain, you know, your elbow or your neck and they turn colors as your body temperature increases. Has anybody has had experience with those?

Dr. David Michaels:

Anyone on the call has - this is David Michael from OSHA we haven't.

Man:

I'm not aware of them. I - that's actually good information.

(Stephanie DeWitt):

Yes. I guess a lot of athlete's use them. I've just - we we've heard about them but we haven't really given them a field test yet. It's the company IonX, I-O-N-X.

Coordinator:

I'm showing no further questions at this time.

Dr. David Michaels:

Very good. Well thank you all again and stay cool.

Man:

Bye-bye.

Man:

Thank you all.

(Mary McGreal):

Thank you.

Coordinator:

And this does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time.

END

OSHA is a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador committed to working with NOAA and other Ambassadors to strengthen national preparedness for and resilience against extreme weather.

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OSHA also provides help to employers. OSHA's On-site Consultation Program offers free and confidential advice to small and medium-sized businesses in all states across the country, with priority given to high-hazard worksites. For more information or for additional compliance assistance contact OSHA at 1-800-321-6742 (OSHA).

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